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by toomanyromanas (day_dreaming_shadow)



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 10:38:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2544488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/day_dreaming_shadow/pseuds/toomanyromanas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Romana always knew she would return to N space eventually. The question really was where could she go after?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

It wasn’t her home. E-space was a different Universe, a different plane of existence. The tharils didn’t really need her anymore; they numbered enough and had some form of structured leadership now. The bigger question was where did she belong? 

She didn’t belong on Gallifrey, not anymore. She couldn’t help but blame the doctor; she’d been perfectly content before, she’d had a whole career ahead of her. But now she knew there was a whole Universe full of things that could never be captured by words in a text book; now she knew that aliens were as sentient as them and she couldn’t go back. Well they did say ignorance was bliss. 

She glanced down at the mathematical equations in front of her. She’d calculated them much more carefully and slowly than the Farrians had plus she was sure she knew more of physics and maths than them. However there was still an element of risk, she’d seen firsthand evidence that creating a CVE would be risky. 

Logically Romana knew she couldn’t stay there forever. Even after years E space still felt different, wrong somehow. She’d seen a great deal of the other Universe through her escapades and rescues, there wasn’t much else to see. 

She sighed and picked up her work. The decision was inevitable. She might not have a home but that had never stopped the doctor.  
-  
The orange-red planet still loomed in her thoughts, a phantom in her mind she couldn’t shake off even as she stopped interstellar wars and halted civilisations from crumbling.  
As she rebuilt K-9 for the umpteenth time, wondering if he would ever be able to withstand water damage, the ship landed with a thud. It was just a spaceship borrowed from the tharils, not that she could ever return it. It was nothing like the Tardis- it was slow, reliable and simple. She was a time lord yet bound to the present. She missed the freedom of flying through time, of being able to glide through to another century as soon as the current one became dull. 

She moved to the doors, K-9 dutifully followed despite the worrying sounds coming from him. 

She barely looked at the landscape and looked instead at the sky. Her breath caught. The stars looked too familiar, as if she had seen something similar, at a different angle enough times for it to burn into her memory. 

“K-9? Are we in kasterborous?” 

“Yes mistress.”

She thought of the Gallifrey of her childhood, the skulking pigrats, the silver leaves, the twin suns; she thought of the mind numbing days at the academy, the ice queen, her triple first; she thought of the panopticon and the corruption that hid behind its splendour. 

Gallifrey was far from perfect, brimming with xenophobia, prejudice and abhorrent to change, caring more about law and tradition than those alive in the present. But maybe she could change it, make it her home again.

**Author's Note:**

> I picked the version of events suggested in the Invasion of E space audio instead of Blood Harvest simply because the latter is more complex and more accidental than choice.


End file.
